Holy Hell, page 9
part #5 of Sins of the Father Series
I caught glimpses of Jimmy’s face as I whirled and flowed with my blade. He never flinched the whole time. In fact, his huge eyes almost seemed filled with admiration. Maybe his quiet encouragement did bolster my strength a little bit. I smiled to myself, continuing the assault, raining more and more blows on the zombies.
Until my sword met something far harder than a zombie’s neck, connecting with a horrible clang. The impact vibrated up my arm, so strongly that I could feel it in my teeth. I blinked, confused. Where the zombie’s throat was supposed to be, there was a strip of something stony, chalky and white. Almost like the weird, bumpy protrusions on a turtle’s shell, or the horns on some long-extinct dinosaur. Or maybe an armadillo’s plates.
I muttered to myself so softly that I could barely hear it. “The fuck?”
“Durandal,” the zombie answered, before it swatted my sword clear out of my grip, then punched me in the stomach. I doubled over, winded and wheezing. Fuck. Those knuckles were covered in bony lumps, too, and so were the rest of its hands and arms. What was going on?
Jimmy came running to me, but I threw my arm out. “Stay there. Don’t. I’m okay.”
“You’re hurt,” he cried out. “Someone, help him. Lady, please, you gotta help him.”
Lady? Did Artemis find us? I stumbled away from the zombie, keeping myself clear as I looked for the goddess. Wrong lady, though. This one had her hair in a severe bun, and wore severe glasses over a severe outfit that was more smock than it was pantsuit.
“Sadriel? What the hell are you doing here?”
“That’s not a very polite way to greet a friend, is it, Mr. Albrecht?” She stepped backwards, keeping her eyes on the zombies as she joined me and Jimmy in the corner of the hedge wall.
“She your friend?” Jimmy asked, like it was imperatively crucial for him to establish that this lady was not, in fact, there to feed us to the zombies.
I nodded. “Sometimes. I think we’re friends right now, at least.”
“You are correct, Mr. Albrecht.” Sadriel smiled down at Jimmy, the first I’d seen her be genuinely sweet, not simpering or condescending. “And I’ll be your friend, too, Jimmy.”
Jimmy’s mouth fell open. “How did you know my name?”
Sadriel winked, then brought something out from an inside pocket of her jacket. I panicked for a second, pulling Jimmy into my arms and farther up against the hedge.
“Keep close, Jim,” I said. “Things are about to get wild.”
“It appears that the undead have developed specific resistances,” Sadriel said. “They’re adapting, if you will, transmitting this information among themselves through a bizarre sort of hive mind.”
I frowned, wondering why she wanted to have this conversation while a drooling squad of zombies was just feet away from ripping out our entrails. “You mean they’re evolving? That’s insane.”
“You say insane, I say it’s fascinating. They’ve developed these strange armored plates in response to your preference for edged weapons. What remains to be seen is whether they’ll offer much protection against, shall we say, more ballistic tactics. This will be a most interesting experiment.”
I hugged Jimmy tighter, steadying my mind long enough to summon a shield for us to huddle behind, just in case. Sadriel held out her hands, and along with it her beloved bullet journal. She lifted her chin, smiling triumphantly as she parted the covers.
“For science.”
It was as if half a dozen invisible machine guns had opened fire in the gardens. I didn’t know how much tinkering Sadriel had done since the last time we’d seen her, but she’d tweaked the bullet journal to fire even more ammunition at a frighteningly accelerated rate, dozens of golden pellets spraying the zombies and shredding their rotted bodies into insignificant giblets, armored plates be damned.
Sadriel’s maniacal laughter tumbled around the gardens, this being one of the rare times, I realized, that I’d seen the angel of order ever come undone. In her excitement, stray locks of her hair had fallen out of her bun. But this time, whether or not on purpose, she’d also unfurled her wings, golden and majestic, four pairs of them sprouting from her back, fluttering and adjusting to help her keep balance as her bullet journal unleashed its payload of divine death.
Jimmy glanced between us, beaming in open wonder. “Whoa. You’re not a superhero. You’re angels. Both of you.” He reared his head back, like he was trying to get a better look at me. “Are you my guardian angel?”
I couldn’t help grinning at the kid. “You know what, Jim? Maybe I am.”
18
Golden smoke filled the air, along with the overpowering odor of death and rot. Sadriel had saved the day, but my nostrils were burning. I could practically taste the zombies. My stomach churned. Not even all the flowers of the Nicola Arboretum could combat the stench.
But Jimmy didn’t care. He broke away from me and ran towards Sadriel, clutching at her pants and hugging one of her thighs. “That was amazing!”
Sadriel chuckled, blowing across the top of her bullet journal like it was a gun. A plume of golden smoke streamed from the covers. “It was quite all right,” she said. “Not bad, I think.”
She smoothed back her hair, tucked the stray locks back behind her ears, then folded her wings behind her. They shimmered, then vanished, and the angel of order once again looked like your average, everyday power executive – only surrounded by piles and piles of decayed flesh, that is.
I stood up, finally dismissing my sword and shield when I could tell that no more zombies were about to show up and risk total annihilation by existing within Sadriel’s line of sight. “Thanks for the backup.”
She shrugged, watching with interest as my armaments disappeared into puffs of glitter. “Not a problem, Mr. Albrecht. I see that you’re adapting to your new condition. Without the Vestments, it only makes sense to call on your powers of matter manipulation. Creatio ex nihilo. How glorious! How does the saying go again? Necessity is the mother of invention?”
My brows furrowed as the gears in my head slowly started spinning. “Wait a minute. Is this some kind of farce? Are you only pretending that I owe money for using the Vestments? You put some kind of artificial block on my powers, didn’t you? This is another one of those stupid tests your department loves so much.”
Sadriel chuckled nervously. “What? I can assure you, Mr. Albrecht, your debt to the armories is very hefty, and very, very real.” Then she glanced down at her wrist, studying a watch that wasn’t there. “Well, would you look at the time? I really must be going. Plenty more work to be done upstairs.” She bent her knees, gently patting Jimmy on the head. “Now, you take care of yourself, young Jimmy. Be good to your father. He loves you very much.”
Before Jimmy could answer, or before I could protest, Sadriel pressed her journal to her breast, then lifted her head to the sky. A pillar of light consumed her, catapulting her molecules back up to the high heavens, or wherever the hell it was that she tinkered with books that worked like machine guns. I squinted at empty space, wondering if I was right about her and the Vestments.
Jimmy stared open mouthed up into the canopy of trees, searching the spaces between the leaves and branches, just making sure that Sadriel was gone.
“Wow. She was so cool.”
I scoffed, then shrugged. “I mean, she wasn’t that cool.” I took his hand, then guided him out of the area, taking care to avoid the little piles of leftover zombie.
There was still no sign of the others, but the silence in the arboretum told me that the assault was over. Well, that this assault was over, at least. We’d have time to meet up and strategize later. My priority was to get Jimmy to safety, find his father. It didn’t take very long. We passed through the cafeteria again, and there, frantically searching through flipped-over furniture, was a man with a beard, glasses, and a checkered shirt, very strong mid-thirties dad kind of energy. He saw us approaching, and his eyes went huge.
“Jimmy?”
“Daddy!”
Jimmy went running into his father’s arms. I couldn’t help grinning to myself. The guy in the glasses looked up at me, panting, breathing like he’d just remembered how. Knowing that his kid was safe must have been a massive relief.
“Thank you,” the man said, hugging his son tight, tears spilling down his face. “Thank you. You don’t understand. Thank you.”
I gripped him by the shoulder, ruffling Jimmy’s hair. “You’re welcome. Always.”
The man wiped at his face, his expression going stern all of a sudden as he remembered himself. “But what happened here? This isn’t normal. There has to be an explanation for all this.”
I scratched at the back of my forearm, looking around as if I’d find that explanation written on a nearby wall. “Well, you see – ”
The man made a noise that sounded like a vaguely strangled “Urk,” then slumped to the ground, fast asleep.
“Daddy?” Jimmy shook him once. “Come on. That’s not funny.” The kid looked up at me, a question just forming on his lips when his eyes slid into the back of his head. He passed out, crumpled into a sleeping heap in the grass.
I rushed to his side, my hands aching inches away, afraid to touch either father or son, because what the hell was happening here? But a pair of shoes appeared in my peripheral vision, a pair of scuffed shoes attached to some very unpressed pants, a rumpled trench coat, and a very, very surly expression.
“Damn it,” I muttered.
Royce cracked his knuckles. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, kid.”
I looked around at the surrounding devastation: broken glass, trampled pastries, bits and pieces of dead zombie everywhere. I shrugged at Royce. “I got nothing.”
Royce stabbed a thick finger at my face. “You stay right here. We’ve got to discuss this shit. As if you haven’t noticed, things are getting worse.” He held two fingers up to his temple, like he was activating an invisible device by his ear, his version of telepathy. “Where the hell are you assholes? Why is everybody sitting on their dicks? This is a cleanup. I need the entire department here. Now.”
A familiar popping started to go off all around the arboretum, the sound of the Lorica’s teleporters arriving en masse. Men and women materialized out of nothing, some holding clipboards, others fiddling with devices as they fielded phone calls. Some of these were Wings, mages who specialized in all kinds of transportation magic, responsible for transferring Royce’s people to the scene. In most cases, that meant the Mouths, whisperers and mind-wipers who were skilled at erasing and editing thoughts, basically making sure that civilian bystanders who saw one too many supernatural occurrences would quickly forget.
That was Royce’s department, after all. He and his people represented the Lorica’s public relations team, people who manipulated both minds and the media with terrifying skill. They kept the normals in the dark, and for good reason. I couldn’t imagine how humanity at large would begin to react if they knew that vampires and angels and wizards walked among them.
But today, Royce had brought some Hands to clean up as well. Normally, the Lorica’s Hands were combatants, wielders of truly destructive magical might. But a disintegration spell is, at its core, an efficient way of obliterating matter, so the kind of mage who was good at simply making their enemies cease to exist now had to use that same magic to quite literally erase all evidence that zombies had ever invaded the Nicola Arboretum. A couple of them were already hard at work, scrubbing gross zombie meat from reality as easily as someone handles a vacuum cleaner.
Royce barked orders the whole while, only pausing to kneel beside the sleeping bodies of Jimmy and his father. A strange sort of softness came over Royce’s face as he focused, placing his hands on their foreheads as he worked his magic and began to wipe their memories. I chewed on the inside of my cheek, feeling an odd bittersweetness about the whole thing.
“Part of him will remember, Mr. Albrecht. Part of him will always remember.”
I cleared my throat, pulling myself back together when I realized that Maharani had more or less crept up on me. “Didn’t see you there, sorry. And I don’t know what you mean.”
Rani smiled. “It always happens, you know? These little tricks that Royce’s people play, the Mouths? They don’t completely wipe the minds of the normals so successfully. Not always. Sometimes the things they have seen come back to them in flashes, or in dreams. If they’re unlucky, in nightmares.”
I looked at the sleeping boy, at Jimmy, hoping that he would only ever remember me in dreams. Rani placed her hand on my arm.
“It will shape his life. Trust me on this. He won’t remember how, or why, but he will always know that in this world, there are good men.”
I smiled right back at her, feeling my ears redden.
“Good men with targets painted on their backs.”
My smile dropped from my face. “I know, I know.”
“I am kinder than my peers, Mr. Albrecht. Some will argue that I am the kindest among them all, and the most patient. But even I have my limits, and I don’t need to tell you that these attacks from the undead are zoning closer and closer to the heart of the city. There is only so much the Lorica can do. Find this missing sword. Retrieve it immediately.”
Royce shoved himself between us, his face stormy, and pushed so close to mine that I could smell the whiskey and cigarettes on his breath. Hey, it was a high-stress job. Who was I to judge?
“Do you even know where Durandal is, Albrecht?” he said gruffly. “Because the clock is ticking. Maharani’s the only thing standing between my fist and your face. Between freedom and the Prism.”
I tried not to gulp. Royce didn’t misspeak. The Lorica’s high-security Prism was where arcane criminals went, and they didn’t tend to come back.
I held my hands up. “We were genuinely about to do some large-scale scrying to find the damn thing, right before the zombies showed up.”
Royce scowled, folding his arms. “We? Who is ‘we,’ exactly.”
“That would be we. Me. Whatever.”
All three of us turned to the sound of Asher’s voice. He was walking a little more stiffly than usual, his chest stuck out a little too far as he stared Royce down. Ah, I should have remembered. The two of them weren’t exactly on the friendliest of terms. Florian came down the path behind him, followed by Priscilla.
“Asher Mayhew,” Royce growled.
“Royce – um, Royce.” Asher tried to make himself sound all tough, too, but I was as confused as he was. We didn’t even know Royce’s last name. Come to think of it, maybe Royce was his last name.
“You I’ve met,” Royce said, nodding at Florian. “And you – oh.”
For once, Royce looked taken aback as Priscilla bared both rows of teeth at him. I’d known her long enough to understand the difference between a genuine smile and a primate’s display of aggression. This wasn’t a smile. She thumped the butt of her staff once against the grass.
“Ook,” Priscilla said.
Royce scratched his head. “Huh. Right. Anyway. So you’re supposed to be helping Albrecht find the sword?”
“That’s right,” Asher said. “Me and Florian. Between the two of us, we should have enough resources to track the thing down. We don’t know where it is just yet, but at least we’ve got a lead. I’m surprised you didn’t have your Eyes on the case.”
Royce gritted his teeth. “They couldn’t find anything,” he admitted grudgingly.
Rani folded her arms, her forehead creased with concern. “Who has it? Who has Durandal?”
I shook my head and sighed. “You’re not gonna like this. Another demon prince. Beelzebub.”
Royce slapped himself in the forehead. “Oh for fuck’s sake. What is with you and all these demon princes?”
“Hey, don’t ask me. I never asked to have the Seven constantly trying to crawl their way up my butt. And why are the zombies still after me, anyway, if they somehow know that I don’t physically have Durandal with me?”
“That isn’t how it works, Mr. Albrecht,” Rani said. “The revenants are morally coded to punish the person responsible for the sword in the first place. It doesn’t matter who has possession of it now. Roland wants the blade returned. As far as he’s concerned, it’s your fault that the blade was displaced.”
“And the longer you wait to actually retrieve the sword, the more frequent these zombie attacks are going to be.” Royce flung his hand across the gardens. “This is the biggest and most brazen yet. What if those things showed up out in the city? A mall, or the business district? Cleanup just here in the gardens is already a colossal pain in my ass.” He pointed his finger dead center of my face. “Fix this, nephilim. Fix this, or I swear, the Lorica is going to come down on you. Hard.”
I swatted his hand out of my face, taking satisfaction in his surprise. I looked at my friends, nodding at them in silent agreement, emboldened as they nodded confidently back. “We’ll fix it. We’ll find Durandal and return it. This ends today.”
And I meant it, too. Next stop: Beelzebub.
19
It was late afternoon by the time Royce and his team from the Lorica finished clearing out the Nicola Arboretum. The sheer greenery in the gardens meant that the compound was cool and comfy even on the warmest California days, but this time it felt colder, somehow, like the ground and grass itself knew that something was off.
Florian and Asher had spent the better part of the morning tucked away in a corner of the gardens, their palms flat against the earth as they sent their feelers out. I hovered nearby, hating that there was so little I could do to help. Priscilla and Artemis had returned to Paradise to make sure everything was fine on the inside, which left Samyaza to keep me company.
We were barely on day one of trying to work out this father and son thing, and it didn’t feel like it’d get any less awkward for either one of us. We sat in the grass in silence, watching Florian and Asher, well, work in silence. I pulled my knees up to my chest, sighing.
